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BP has stopped booking profits from the venture. Chief executive Bob Dudley is expected to give more details on when the sale will close.

However, the City believes Rosneft will be a poor substitute for TNK-BP in terms of cash generation and Rosneft’s below-par results last Friday gave little cause for optimism.

BP last week reached a settlement in US courts over criminal charges arising from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter over the workers who died and it paid $1.3 billion in fines.

It is also paying the Securities and Exchange Commission $500 million for misleading investors over the amount of oil spilt into the Gulf of Mexico.

On February 23 in New Orleans the company faces further legal proceedings over alleged breaches of the US Clean Water Act. Analysts reckon it could be fined $10 billion.

Dudley will be quizzed over the future of the company’s operations in Algeria after terrorists struck at a gas facility, killing at least three BP staff.

BP increased its dividend to nine cents a share in the third quarter. This is still below the 14 cents level when it was the biggest dividend payer in the FTSE 100 before Deepwater Horizon, but there are fears that the rise was premature and a fall in oil prices could hit BP hard.

BP has sold its Texas City refinery in the US to Marathon Petroleum for $2.4 billion. Fifteen workers died in an explosion at the plant in 2005. BP admitted failing to have adequate maintenance procedures and paid a $50 million fine.